


The Story of Lt. Andrew Denmark (1)

by pallasite



Series: Behind the Gloves [165]
Category: Babylon 5, Babylon 5 & Related Fandoms
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Department Sigma, Earth-Minbari War, EarthForce, Fighter Pilots, Fix-It, Gen, Mars, Origins Of The Black Omega Squadron, Psi Corps, Secret Projects, Worldbuilding, telepaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:40:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23256340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallasite/pseuds/pallasite
Summary: Tim Dehass' “The Psi Corps and You!” (Babylon 5 #11), a semi-canon comic, tells us of Lt. Andrew Denmark, an unsung hero of the Earth-Minbari War - a fighter pilot whose identity was only declassified over a decade later.This is his story.-----She waved an access card in front of black panel, and a set of large metal bay doors slid open with a hiss to reveal a cavernous hangar filled with… He couldn't believe it.Starfuries.Denmark’s breath caught in his throat. There were eighteen birds, all painted solid black, unmarked.He whistled, and the sound echoed in the enormous room. “Sweet. I didn’t know the Corps had these.”“You’re in good company,” said Alexander. “Neither does the Corps.”-----The prologue ofBehind the Glovesishere- please read!
Series: Behind the Gloves [165]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/677654
Kudos: 4





	The Story of Lt. Andrew Denmark (1)

**Author's Note:**

> New to _Behind the Gloves_? What is this series? Where are the acknowledgements, table of contents and universe timelines? See [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10184558/chapters/22620590).
> 
> If you like _Behind the Gloves_ and would like to send me an email, I can be reached at counterintuitive at protonmail dot com. Do you have questions? Would you like to tell me what you like about this project? Email me!
> 
> I also have an [ask blog](https://behind-the-gloves.tumblr.com/), a [writing blog](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/pallasite-writes), and a "P3 life" Tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/p3-life) with funny anecdotes. :)

August 2243

Four weeks after the start of the Earth-Minbari War, Lt. Andrew Denmark faced an administrative discharge.

His commanding officer just shook his bald head, unable to look Denmark in the eye.

“I’m sorry, son,” he said, solemnly. “The regs are clear. I don’t want to let you go, you know that. You’re one of our best pilots. But this goes all the way to the top. I tried. I fought this, I really did. My hands are tied.”

There would be no board hearing, no appeal. His P6 rating ended his career overnight, and nothing short of personal intervention from President Levy could change that. She was, of course, indisposed. Telepaths had been banned from service for generations, and Denmark didn't expect to become the exception.

Ever since his childhood, he'd dreamt of nothing but flying. He'd entered AirDome at seventeen and graduated top in his class, specializing in Starfuries. He spent his first assignment on Proxima III, as part of the colony’s defense squadron, before returning to Earth three years later for officer training. From then on, it was one assignment after the next, “ops to ops” – Beijing, Buenos Aires, Io. Receiving his promotion to Lieutenant, he was next assigned for a year to Beta Durani as squadron leader, before returning to AirDome for even more elite training. One more year, and with luck, he would be promoted to Major, and given command of the squadron.

Or he should have been, anyway.

Now, at the dawn of war with the Minbari, EarthForce was kicking him out.

“It’s been an honor serving with you, sir.”

There wasn’t anything else to say. The Corps had told him they would try to set him up as a telepath attaché to a high-ranking EarthForce officer, but he knew he’d never take any such job. He was a fighter pilot, not a lapdog.

“The Corps also has a need for pilots to run cargo missions,” the Psi Corps rep explained. “The Corps has a presence throughout the Earth Alliance, and though most telepaths travel on commercial craft, the Corps does run our own supply missions. Sometimes we help EarthForce deliver aid to colonies in need.”[1]

“I’m not a cargo pilot, I’m a fighter pilot.”

“The Corps has no military. I'm sorry.”

Denmark signed himself up as a cargo pilot, but he felt like he was signing away his soul.

His buddies came to see him that night. No one knew what to say, because Denmark’s discharge was plainly unimaginable. They understood a medical discharge, or a discharge for misconduct, but not this. None of them had ever known a telepath. One in a thousand – who knew a telepath?

They didn’t know what to think, so they brought beer, and everyone got smashed.

“I don’t get it,” said Harris. “Why can’t you fly?”

“Regs.”

“But why?”

“They say ‘unit cohesion’,” Denmark remarked dryly.

“Fuck that, I’ve never seen a unit more cohesive than yours, man.”

"Cohesion?!" shouted McLaughlin. "They're fucking up cohesion by discharging you!"

“Tell that to President Levy.”

“No one knows a Starfury like you do. No one. I can’t believe they’re doing this.”

“I don’t care what they say you are,” said Chen, crushing a beer can in his left fist. “They could tell me you’re secretly the leader of the Dilgar, I don’t give a shit. You’re our squad leader. They’re pulling you out in the name of cohesion? Oh, fuck _them_.”

His buddies didn’t leave until three in the morning. All alone in his apartment, Denmark realized it was over. He’d never fly a Starfury again. EarthForce had discarded him like rubbish, even suspended his pension. He was going to have to spend the rest of his life wearing black gloves, flying cargo ships for the Corps. Everything he’d ever worked for since childhood was over.

_All I’ve ever wanted was to fight for my planet. To fight, maybe even die, with honor._

He pulled out his PPG and sat down on the bed, turning it over and over in his hands, thinking. The minutes passed. One shot, and it would be over. No humiliation of living in the Corps. No more feeling other people’s thoughts. It would be over, just like that.

He put the gun to his head, breathing hard.

He heard a beep from the other room. A call. Someone was calling him at almost four in the morning, dammit.

With a sigh, he put down the gun and walked into the living room.

“Denmark here,” he grumbled.

A young woman appeared on the screen. Denmark didn’t recognize her, but he saw the psi insignia badge she wore. Why the hell was the Corps calling him in the middle of the night? He didn’t imagine that even with all their powers, they knew what he was contemplating.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she said.

“Not at all,” he lied.

_I’m just smashed, about to shoot myself. Nothing important._

“There’s an urgent gold channel communiqué for you from the Corps,” she said. “From the commander of Department Sigma, on Mars. I've been instructed to patch this through to you at once, even though it's the middle of the night, your time.”

“Department whats-it?”

“Sigma. They're... covert.”

“Covert? What do they want with me? I’m not intelligence, I’m a fucking fighter pilot.”

"I don't have access to the communiqué, Mr. Denmark."

"Hold on, back up. I'm drunk. You want what, again?"

"I'm sending you the file now."

The communiqué was short and to the point - the commander of Department Sigma had personally ordered him to Mars. He was instructed to take the soonest civilian transport to the Syria Planum spaceport, where he would be met by someone from the department.

_The department._ Whoever the hell they were.

Denmark thanked the young woman from the Corps, and disconnected the call. He splashed his face with ice water.

_A Psi Corps covert facility?_ he thought. _The commander wants to talk to me personally, face to face on Mars?_

He decided suicide could wait. He was too curious to know what this new fuss was all about. He packed a duffel bag and made the flight arrangements.

*****

Andrew Denmark stepped off the transport and looked around the Syria Planum spaceport terminal. His head hurt. What if no one came to meet him? He didn’t expect the local Corps office would know anything about this, not if the orders truly came from a clandestine outfit.

His eyes scanned the crowd. A tall man in civilian clothes, with gloves, stood about thirty feet off. Their eyes met, and the man nodded.

_Lieutenant Denmark?_

Denmark blinked. He’d caught that clear across the terminal. There were at least half a dozen people in between them, and they didn’t so much as look up.

He nodded.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he said to the air.

The man approached and shook his hand firmly. "Welcome to Mars." He looked down. "Where are your gloves?"

“I don’t have any,” Denmark replied, gruffly. “Not like yours, anyway. A lady called me at four in the morning and told me to haul ass to Mars. I barely had time to take a shit. I was supposed to buy gloves?”

The man sighed, and rolled his eyes. “Well, aren’t you something, hot shot. Ms. Alexander's gonna love _you_.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. Just come along. We can get you gloves, make you decent.”

“Make me what?”

The man didn’t reply – he just turned and started walking through the terminal, towards another exit. Denmark adjusted his duffel bag over his shoulder as he walked. It was so much lighter in the Martian gravity.

The man stopped at the gate and gestured. “After you.”

A small shuttle sat waiting, a large psi insignia emblazoned on the side. Denmark estimated four, maybe five people could fit inside.

This is what they wanted him to fly, a bird like this. A Psi Corps taxi.

His escort and the pilot exchanged a knowing look.

"What?"

They didn't answer him. The pilot cleared the airlock and took off, banking left and gaining altitude. They flew for over an hour over barren Mars desert, over endless rocks and dust as far as the eye could see, under an eerie yellow sky.

"Where are we going, again?"

His companions weren’t forthcoming with information, so Denmark caught a quick nap. When they landed, he was escorted past armed guards - all wearing psi insignia - and into a heavily fortified facility.

Holy shit, this was a _base_.

The walls were solid, thick duracrete, and bright fluorescent lights illuminated a maze of corridors lined with closed, unmarked metal doors. He followed his escort to a lift, and down, deep beneath the Martian bedrock. From the looks of the base’s construction, this “Department Sigma” outfit, whatever they did here, had been around for a very long time.

When the lift finally stopped, Denmark felt a queasiness in his stomach, and it wasn't the low gravity.

“After you.”

Denmark stepped off the lift and followed his escort down another long corridor, passed more polished metal doors, and into an office at the far end. In front of him stood a petite old lady, her white hair in a pixie cut. She wore black uniform of a type Denmark didn’t recognize, glittering with pins under her psi insignia badge. Despite her age, there was no mistaking that this woman had once been strong and athletic in her youth.

She extended a black-gloved hand. “Lt. Andrew Denmark,” she said with a smile. “I’m Commander Natasha Alexander. I’ve been waiting for you.”

The escort left, closing the door behind him.

“Welcome to Department Sigma. It’s not the coziest of places, but we get by.”

“Commander.”

He stood in the tiny, windowless office, at a loss for words. The Psi Corps rep had told him that the Corps had no military, yet this was unmistakably a military base of sorts, and this strange woman was its commander – whatever that meant in the Corps. He’d spent his whole adult life in the military, but this was very obviously not EarthForce.

“It’s a real shame what they did to you,” the old woman said, turning to pour two cups of tea. “You’ve given everything to EarthForce. You don’t deserve that kind of treatment.”

“Thank you, commander, for your kind words."

"As soon as I heard what they were doing, I made the calls. You deserve better, do you hear me?"

"Yes ma'am... but can you tell me why I’m here?”

She looked him up and down, and pursed her lips. He felt the strangest sensation, like she was looking straight through him and out the other side. “You’ll do,” she said, after a slight pause. “You’ll do just fine. But first we’ve got to get you some gloves, and cure that hangover.” She smiled. "Tea?"

*****

Once he was properly clad, the old commander took him for a walk through the base. “You want to know why you're here. I don't blame you. Well, we’ve been waiting for you."

"For me? You're kidding."

"Not you personally... but someone like you. It's not uncommon to develop telepathy at your age - usually on the weak end - but how many telepaths are fighter pilots? Starfury instructors, even? None, not until you.”

She waved an access card in front of black panel, and a set of large metal bay doors slid open with a hiss to reveal a cavernous hangar filled with… He couldn't believe it. _Starfuries._ Denmark’s breath caught in his throat. There were eighteen birds, all painted solid black, unmarked.

He whistled, and the sound echoed in the enormous room. “Sweet. I didn’t know the Corps had these.”

“You’re in good company,” said Alexander. “Neither does the Corps.”

He looked at her suspiciously.

“Department Sigma is my outfit,” she said, proudly. “No one but me knows everything we do here – not the director, not the Senate, not the president herself. The Starfuries are one of our projects.”

Slowly, the pieces began to click.

“We have the ships,” Alexander was saying, “but no one to fly them. The Corps only has cargo pilots. You know Starfuries. You teach Starfuries. We need you.”

“Where’d you get these?” He ran his now-gloved fingers along the black metal.

“Here and there,” she replied coolly. “We stole the plans from EarthForce, and made some improvements. We acquired the parts from surplus, from old ships they were taking out of service - as I said, here and there - and we assembled them on site. The engineers think the ships run properly, but we need someone to fly them, and to test them.”

“What’s the catch?”

"What do you mean, 'the catch'?"

“What if I say no?” he asked.

“You won’t.”

He bristled. “How can you be so certain?”

Alexander shrugged. “Because you’re a fighter pilot,” she said flatly. “You’re born to fly these. I’ve read your file front to back. You won’t fly cargo planes. You won't fly taxi shuttles. You sure as hell won't become a military attaché. And you won’t let EarthForce ground you for life."

He felt a knot in his stomach. Did she know what he'd been contemplating?

"You’re a telepath now, Mr. Denmark," she continued. "You're behind the gloves. EarthForce won’t let you within fifty feet of one of these birds. They won’t even let you clean latrines.”

He looked into her deep green eyes, and knew that somehow, she knew he was going to pick up that PPG. Maybe it was her age, and her years in the field. Maybe she’d figured it out from his file. Maybe she'd scanned him. Somehow, she knew.

Damn her.

“But what if I say no?”

“Then we wipe your memory of your time here, and send you back home. You wake up in your apartment. You and I both know how that will end. What a waste.”

His mouth was dry, and it wasn’t just the filtered air of the base.

“I probably shouldn’t ask you this,” he began, hesitatingly, “but why does the Corps have Starfuries? Is this a conspiracy to invade Earth? They say all sorts of things about the Corps, you know. And now that I’ve seen this place, I don’t know what to believe. But I’m loyal to Earth. I won’t invade my homeworld.”

"We're going to invade Earth with eighteen second-hand Starfuries? Mr. Denmark, you know that makes no sense."

"Then why do you have them? You can't expect to fight the Minbari with eighteen Starfuries."

She shook her head. “The Minbari were not in our plans. That was not expected. But they declared war on humanity, and if we don't stop them, then there's nothing more to talk about.“ She turned to him. "I don’t have all day. Do I have your support, or not?”

He hesitated. Department Sigma was a covert outfit - he didn't know what they did, and probably never would. What was he in for, if he accepted? He’d come to Mars on a whim, and now, if he said yes, he was never coming home, of that he was certain. His family, his friends, would probably never know what happened to him.

He was going to disappear.

“You signed up for EarthForce to fight for your planet, right?”

He nodded.

“To protect Earth from danger?”

“Yes ma'am.”

“The Minbari have declared total war. There are mobilizing their forces, putting together their supply lines. You do not know what I know, and I hope you never do. When they strike, it will be like nothing we have ever seen. Every ship counts, and every pilot counts. Join us, and you have my promise that before this war is out, you will have your chance to fight.”

For some reason he didn’t understand, he believed her, this strange, petite old woman in black.

He shook her hand. “Yes ma'am. Count me in.”

[1] See Tim Dehass. “The Psi Corps and You!” /Babylon 5 #11/


End file.
